


La Serenissima

by fables



Category: The Vampire Diaries - L. J. Smith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-24
Updated: 2003-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:52:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fables/pseuds/fables
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set thirty years after the trilogy has ended. Stefan goes to Venice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Serenissima

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Eve

The first time Stefan leaves Italy is at the beginning of the sixteenth century, after his brother sends him a letter. I'm coming back, the letter says. If I find you I will kill you.

 

Five hundred years later, Stefan returns, but not to the city of his birth, not to bright Florence. He goes to Venice instead, the city that was for so long ruled by merchant-princes and now takes its heed from thousands of tourists.

The Venetians of old would have hated it; Andrea would have raged at the powerless spectacle his beloved city had become. But Andrea was Damon's friend, not his, and Stefan does not care. The city drifts somewhere between memory and reality, slowly sinking into the sea; Stefan stays at a pensione whose walls are water-stained and crumbling and is comforted.

Sometimes he goes out in the daytime, mingling with the tourists. Walks to Piazza San Marco and visits the Palazzo Ducale, looking out from its colonnades. He remembers when the sea was full of boats, as far as the eye could see, all there to view the coronation; remembers the embroidered dresses and feathered masks, the spectacle of the jugglers and magicians and the dancing in the streets. Remembers Damon and opens his eyes. These days even the sea looks different, heavy and green, the sunlight no longer reflected by the waves.

More often Stefan goes out at night, when the streets are relatively empty. He hunts animals, not humans - cats and dogs and birds - and is so weak that the water does not even bother him. He can cross all the bridges with ease.

One day he wakes without knowing why. His watch says it's morning, but it's dark outside. He steps out on the balcony and sees that clouds have come in, covering the sun. A wind rises, and by the afternoon, the canals are clear of the gondoliers.

The darkness is coming from the north. Stefan's skin tingles, the hairs at the back of his neck standing on end. He goes inside, closing the balcony doors, pulling down the curtains. Then he turns, laughing.

"I'm an idiot," he says, and leaves his room. Down the stairs and through the door, the wind whipping his hair into his face and chilling him through his shirt, and there is his brother in front of him.

Damon is leaning against a lamppost, smoking a cigarette and looking out over the canal. His hair is longer now, mussed by the wind and falling into his eyes. He looks stronger and colder than Stefan remembers, standing there with the storm gathering around him.

"Hello Damon," Stefan says, stepping away from the door and onto the street.

Damon turns. His lips curve into a smile when he sees Stefan, his eyes the black of a starless night. The wind picks up, swirling around them; the water reaches higher, flooding onto the cobblestone streets and lapping at his feet.

"How completely predictable you are," Damon says, voice clear over the screaming wind. "Tell me. When was the last time you fed?"

"Why does it matter to you?"

"It doesn't." Damon brings the cigarette to his lips again, eyes flickering down. The wind becomes gentler, the water recedes. "But if you are trying to kill yourself, there are easier ways to go about it. Or is that the reason you called me?"

"I didn't -" But why else would Damon be here, in this city of canals and bridges? "I didn't know I had," Stefan says.

Damon looks past Stefan to the doorway of the pensione, the sign moving back and forth with the wind. "Well, little brother. Now that I'm here - aren't you going to invite me in?"

 

It's been over three decades since Stefan last saw Damon. Over three decades since the night Elena had come back and his brother had left, without a word in between. "I'm not like you," Damon had said, and it's true. Damon isn't like anyone else in the world.

Damon raises an eyebrow when he sees Stefan's room, gaze traveling over the unmade bed, the cracks on the walls, the mold growing on one side of the ceiling. "How cozy," he says, and closes the door behind him, leaning against it.

Stefan takes a breath; he does not know where to begin. Damon had cared for her too. Once, he had been willing to die for her. "Damon. Six months ago, something-"

"Elena's dead." And when Stefan looks up sharply, "Bonnie told me."

"Bonnie-"

"Is perfectly safe." Damon's lips quirk. "She called. On the phone. I'm not quite sure how she found the number, though I don't suppose that matters." A careless shrug, and Damon's gaze leaves Stefan's face. "I've traveled a long way and I'm hungry. Aren't you going to offer your guest any food?"

" _No_ ," Stefan says.

"I suppose I'll have to fend for myself then. I don't have the same knack for starvation that you seem to, and I'm not very fond of mice." He turns, opens the door.

"Damon -" Stefan says.

Damon stills. He looks at Stefan over his shoulder, a clear warning on his face. They can fight, if Stefan wants, but Stefan won't win.

Stefan runs his hand through his hair, frustrated. "I can't stop you, can I?"

Damon smiles. "How utterly brilliant you are."  

 

Stefan feels Damon coming back before he sees him. Knows when Damon opens the door of the pensione, when he climbs the stairs. Stefan turns before the door opens, preparing himself.

He opens his mouth to speak, closes it again.

Damon is holding the door open for someone else.

The girl is small and delicate. Her hair is the color of the sun, her eyes as blue and distant as the sky. Hunger races through Stefan's nerves like wildfire. He wants to scream at his brother, but he can't speak. Memories threaten to choke him.

Her neck is long and pale and there are already two wounds near the collarbone.

"Stefan," Damon says, "this is Adrianna. I thought you might like to meet her."

"No!" Stefan says, stumbling back. The girl's eyes widen.

"As you wish," Damon says, his eyes cold and amused. He turns back to the girl. "Don't mind my brother, love," he says, leading the girl out of the room. "He's a bit shy."

Damon comes back a few minutes later, this time alone. "I'm sorry," he says. "I thought - were her eyes not blue enough? Or was it that you didn't want to share?"

Stefan leaps at him with a sudden strength. His hands are on Damon's shoulders, pinning them to the floor. For a moment he is so angry he can't see, and then the anger drains out of him, leaving him nothing.

"So the pup does have some claws," Damon murmurs. He lies still under Stefan, but there is power thrumming beneath his skin, and his muscles are tense, like those of a wolf prepared to leap. Even here Stefan is at his brother's mercy, even like this.

Stefan closes his eyes, trembling. He is faint from hunger and can hear Damon's heartbeat. Damon's skin is warm, and Stefan is so cold and so empty.

"Why?" Stefan whispers. "Why do you always _hurt_ me?"

Damon's hands wrap around Stefan's head, pulling him down until his lips brush Damon's skin. "Drink," Damon says. " _Do it_ ," weaving a thread of compulsion in his voice, and Stefan no longer even wants to resist.

His fangs tear through the skin. Damon stiffens beneath him, and then deliberately relaxes. His blood is the sweetest thing; Stefan closes his eyes and is lost in it.

 

Some time later, too soon, Damon clenches Stefan's hair in fists, pulling his head back up, pulling him away. "Stefan, that's _enough_ ," a blunt command that Stefan has no choice but to obey.

Stefan takes a deep, shuddering breath, then opens his eyes. Damon's skin is cool and pale now, the bite marks standing out a vivid red. Stefan can hear the blood moving through Damon's veins, the slight hitch in Damon's breath when he leans down again to lick the wounds. He can hear and smell and see so much that it's unbearable.

He's alive, he's alive and she is dead, and there is nothing he can do to bring her back. His tears land on Damon's skin like blood on snow.

Damon cradles Stefan's head with his hands, fingers woven through his hair. "Little brother," Damon says, his voice holding affection and amusement and contempt, and something altogether deeper and darker than all those things.  

 

Stefan dreams of winter, of branches heavy with snow and smoke curling through the sky. He dreams of flying over water and wood, and when he wakes again it is night.

Damon is still there, standing beside the window. Stefan fingers his lips, struggling to understand. That part wasn't a dream - he can hear Damon's heart from across the room, see each strand of his hair. He's aware of the smallest things, and power sings inside him.

Damon lights a cigarette. A golden glow washes over his face, leaving shadows at the hollow under his cheekbone, a faint smudge beneath his lashes.

"I'm going back to Paris tonight," Damon says. He holds the cigarette negligently between his middle and third finger, doesn't seem aware he has it anymore. The cigarette burns to a nub and Damon lets it fall. "You're welcome to come if you wish."

Paris to Stefan is the stink of beggars and the perfume of noblemen, the dark coolness of churches, cold rain and falling leaves and sunlight threading through tree branches. It's been a long time, but Stefan still remembers. There's no city he detests more, than that city of his exile.

Damon turns to look at him, a slight, mocking smile on his face. "Well, little brother?"

"Yes," Stefan says, and Damon stills.

"Were you so sure I would say no?" Stefan asks softly.

Damon's face is distant, his eyes shuttered. "Are you trying to save me again? Reform me? I won't change, not for you, not for anyone."

And Stefan says, carefully, "Damon - I am trying to save myself."

Damon stares for a moment, and then suddenly and softly laughs out loud. "Who am I to refuse that?" he asks, and Stefan's fingers unclench from around the sheets.

One day Damon will leave without him; it's as inevitable as the sunrise in the morning. But not today, not now, and that's as far as Stefan is willing to think.  


End file.
